


Intangibility

by sahrmael



Category: Bleach
Genre: F/M, from my ff.net, i will carry this to my grave bc i was right all along, i will not be silenced, pre-thousand year blood war, so thanks kubo-sensei, they're outstanding together and retsu's history proved it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27288595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahrmael/pseuds/sahrmael
Summary: There is a strange sort of comfort to be found in the intangible. He shouldn't have to explain it. (Pre-TYBW)
Relationships: Kurotsuchi Mayuri/Unohana Retsu
Kudos: 3





	Intangibility

Ignorance is not _harmless._

It is _precisely_ that naïve way of thinking that creates more problems than are already present. And it is the people most fond of that way of thinking who – _big surprise_ – piss him off the very most.

He was never _explicitly_ attracted to her. Not in the way those who define themselves as "normal people" could ever understand.

Whatever. He hasn't the time nor patience to educate them.

Mayuri has never been one for attachment. The closest thing to it that he has observed in himself is _obsession,_ and something of that nature exists far and away from the likes of base emotional hangups.

He is a man most intrigued by what can be challenged or even changed. By the very fluid laws of this world that have no real weight to them until they have been tested and tried and pushed to their limits. Information, to him, is valued over the supposed _sanctity of life_ – which is just another frivolous means to preach emotion as opposed to the cold, hard logic of real hypotheses and proven theories.

Somehow, when weighed against the very physical manifestations of life, the heft of a brain or body in his hands, he finds more sense and beauty in the things he _cannot_ touch.

_The intangibility is oddly comforting._

Information is priceless, and the knowledge this woman carries equates to more than most. Uncovering her secrets, exposing centuries of experience, would take him a thousand lifetimes more than he has already been granted. An invitation – a glance at her records, her theories and tests, much of which he could only hope discern on his own through _years_ of trial and error – had easily been the initial hook down his throat, and neither of them had been the least bit aware.

People think him a _lunatic, and_ they're only half right. What they neglect to note is the _need_ that drives him, comparable at best to a hypoxic cell's oxygen starvation. It isn't a matter of _choice_ so much as it is a _requirement_.

Mayuri learned decades ago that fighting the mind's natural curiosity was useless, and so he had given in.

Looking at her now, mere inches from reach, greater questions arise. She hides her scars well, deflecting with a calmness befitting her authority while he elects to rage. With such a stark difference between their methods, morals and lack thereof, what, he wonders, is it that she sees in him?

When it comes to this woman, there is little lingering interest in physical appearance, his attraction having begun based upon a mutual understanding, a simple exchange, rather than some primal need to connect and meld two opposing sets of cellular data.

That isn't to say that she is unattractive, but this has always been _mind over matter_ , and he likes the way her mind works, even if her almost motherly approach to everything and everyone makes him want to retch. To be treated like a child is thoroughly insulting, and so he fights it. But there are times between them where those habits slip through the cracks and Mayuri finds himself a bit lost as she traces the curve of his jaw.

He greatly prefers the side Unohana _doesn't_ show to people – much the same way she must prefer the times he keeps his damn mouth shut. He'll take her reigned in aggression any day of the week, if only for the way her eyes appear to change. He prefers to be challenged, and by someone worthy of notice.

Anyone else would simply be beneath him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not saying it's super obvious that I think Mayuri is gray asexual, but it is, and I will die on that blade.


End file.
